Fluid handling – Systems – System with plural openings – one a gas vent or access opening
Patent
1987-04-21
1988-08-02
Rivell, John
Fluid handling
Systems
System with plural openings, one a gas vent or access opening
141 18, 220 86R, F16K 2400
Patent
active
047608650
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a fluid valve (hereinafter referred to as "a valve of the kind hereinbefore specified") for incorporation in, association with or attachment to a container for storing a fluid under pressure and arranged for charging a said container therethrough with, and dispensing therethrough from said container, a said fluid.
The invention also includes within its scope a said container comprising a said valve.
Fluids which may be stored in such containers will in general be compressible gases at relatively high pressures. The invention is particularly applicable to containers for carbon dioxide (which will at normal climatic temperatures exert a pressure usually in the range of 20 to 100 bar) but the invention may also be employed with other pressure-liquefiable gases and with so-called "permanent" gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, neon, helium and the like, and with liquids.
A very wide variety of such containers (usually called "gas cylinders") are known and are in daily use. These gas cylinders conventionally carry an inlet/outlet valve assembly which--apart from sealing the cylinder contents against escape when closed--can perform only one service: that of allowing fluid to flow either in or out when the valve is open; no other function is performed by such conventional valves. Some minor exceptions to this rule include the small (405 ml capacity) carbon dioxide gas cylinder sold under the registered trade mark SODASTREAM and used in home drinks carbonators: the valve assembly carried by this cylinder communicates the internal pressure to a bursting disc so as to empty the cylinder if that pressure exceeds 200 bar approximately; the broadly-similar carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) cylinder sold under the registered trade mark MERRI-MIX also carries a valve assembly having a bursting disc--but in an unusual arrangement which allows the contents to be emptied axially through the valve assembly's normal outlet passage, rather than from a passage branching at right-angles to the valve assembly's axis as in the SODASTREAM cylinder.
A relatively recent advance in the art is described in UK patent application No. 8210083 which discloses lightweight and lower-cost fluid containers wherein, in addition to an inlet/outlet valve and one or more bursting devices of substantially conventional nature, there is provided a pressure-relief valve designed to shed a small proportion of the container's contents if their pressure exceeds a threshold level. By this means the wall-thickness, weight and cost of the container may be reduced.
However, all these cylinders suffer from a common disadvantage: they are very easy to refill and are therefore likely to fall into the hands of unauthorised or unskilled refilling operators, who might refill them with contaminated or sub-standard CO.sub.2, or overfill them, fail to check the bursting disc or fail to provide an adequate refilling service in a variety of ways. This practice generates obvious risks to the health and safety of customers, the cleanliness and reliability of both the cylinders themselves and of the appliances they are used in, and compromises the reputation of the bona fide manufacturers of cylinders and appliances.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce or eliminate this aforesaid disadvantage and, by way of the improved valve embodying the present invention, to make it extremely difficult for an unauthorised operator to refill the container, whilst permitting an authorised operator to do so using equipment specially adapted to cooperate with the valve.
Throughout the description and claims the expressions "inlet" and "outlet" are used in the sense of inlet to the valve from the container and outlet from the valve for the purpose of dispensing or discharging the fluid to atmosphere or to apparatus utilising a pressurised fluid which had been stored in the container. It will be appreciated that consequently, in the context of charging the container, what is throughout referred to as the "outlet" will in fact be taking in fluid and vice ve
REFERENCES:
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patent: 3221782 (1965-12-01), Zellweger et al.
patent: 3324873 (1967-06-01), Trombatore et al.
patent: 3398551 (1968-08-01), Yannascoli
patent: 3432080 (1969-03-01), Venus, Jr.
patent: 3450155 (1969-06-01), Froehner et al.
patent: 3537622 (1970-11-01), Venus, Jr. et al.
patent: 3589397 (1971-06-01), Wagner
patent: 3640320 (1972-02-01), Elkuch
patent: 3834412 (1974-09-01), Fannin
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